‘A Dance with Dragons’ by George R. R. Martin

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What we’ve got right here is crack on paper. It’s the sort of book which will not only have you reading through the night, rapturously flying through each plot twist, but also seriously questioning whether to finish the chapter or to show up to that 50% exam. George R. R. Martin’s fifth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance with Dragons, has proven to be just as all-consuming as its predecessors. Chronologically set alongside the events which occurred in A Feast for Crows, ADwD predominantly concerns itself with Jon Snow at The Wall, Tyrion Lannister on his journey to the Free Cities and Daenerys Targaryen as she tries to keep both the recently freed city Meereen and her morals intact. Children are born and die during the dark times between publication dates for this series and so it is with joy that we behold the hefty nature of ADwD.

Some of us have been burnt in the past, what with Robert Jordan dying before completing his Wheel of Time series, so there’s often an unhappy suspicion that that each freshly released book will be the last. Intrigue and revelations abound in this new installment but there is also a tendency, reminiscent of Jordan in his later books, to frequently have one or more characters repeat phrases. It would appear that, regardless of race, most characters in ADwD are irritatingly fond of the phrase “words are wind”. Don’t you dare allow trifling complaints such as this put you off, however, as you’d be missing out on one of the most enthralling reads I’ve ever encountered. If you want a visual taster before diving into the written world then try HBO’s television adaptation Game of Thrones on for size.

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